Jeremy King, the restaurateur who has long shaped London’s dining scene, once said that when there wasn’t a back story to his restaurants (such as The Ivy or Le Caprice), he would simply invent one. For People’s, there’s no such need. The invite-only bar and club, founded last year in New York by King’s daughter Margot Hauer-King and Emmet McDermott, has revitalized a Greenwich Village townhouse (formerly the site of the fabled Downtown Gallery) into a modern salon steeped in glamour and intrigue. With its copper furnishings, crackling fires, and carefully curated guestlists, the space pays homage to its history while also creating something entirely new.
This January, however, People’s is honoring a different kind of legacy, hosting a pop-up dedicated to King and featuring a handful of the signature dishes that made his London restaurants so iconic. The dishes on the simple three-item menu—Scandinavian frozen berries, bang bang chicken, and a classic martini—are not just classics from King institutions, but tell nostalgic stories of characters from London’s past.
“When Margot wanted to have a cold dish, but a simple dish which was very representative of that period, it was an obvious choice,” King said of the chicken, whose inspiration was born, of all places, from an underwhelming Chinese meal he ate in Earl’s Court. The frozen berries, meanwhile, had more regal roots, being served at the Serpentine Gallery on the day Princess Diana wore her revenge dress. (There, they were drenched in white chocolate.) And the King Martini—cucumber with a twist—needs little explanation.
Celebrities from Mick Jagger to Kate Moss to Andy Warhol have graced the draped tablecloth, rattan chair-lined haunts of Jeremy King’s empire. Lucian Freud was known to eat at The Wolseley six nights a week. Photographs of Princess Diana leaving Le Caprice have become synonymous with her public, paparazzi-captured image. And Stephen Fry spearheaded the group of A-listers who refused to visit the latter institution after it changed hands, forcing King’s business into administration.
Little over a year into its tenure, People’s has inherited a similar kind of buzz—although it keeps the identities of its celebrity visitors a little more discreet. That said, their favorite guest, McDermott tells me, is Patricia Clarkson, who often drops in for a glass of Sancerre. “She lives on the block, she’s an absolute hoot,” Hauer-King adds. “Patricia embodies a few things we’ve always wanted—she’s there at 5 p.m. for a quiet catch-up, and she’s there at 11 p.m. when the music is loud.”
The quiet success of People’s is inseparable from its founders. The pair—who met on a blind date, but quickly realized there wasn’t a romantic connection—are bound by their determination to create a spot they felt did not exist elsewhere in New York. “The really big thing we shared is that we’re both storytellers,” says McDermott, a journalist and film producer. Hauer-King, a senior vice president at United Talent Agency, adds: “It was the fastest, most real friendship I’ve ever really built.”
Given all the noise around the New York City members’ club boom, they wanted to steer away from overpriced cocktails, endless waitlists, and famously short lifespans—their business model started with a list of just 300 friends, who they emailed a booking link to and encouraged to spread the word. Set across three rooms, draped with curtains and a soft lemony light, it feels like stepping into the living room of a chic aunt for an excellently made drink. “I do fundamentally believe that any compelling space is transportive,” McDermott says. “In order to do that, you have to create a world and an experience that takes people out of the daily monotony.” (That theatrical experience begins with the charismatic doorman Frankie Carattini. Any attempts to bribe him for entry will be met with a deadpan: “Honey, my bills are on autopay.”)
Despite their differences, it’s not hard to tease out a throughline between what Hauer-King and McDermott have cultivated and King’s restaurant dynasty: classic food, elevated spaces, eclectic people. “I think everybody assumes that she’s learning from me, but in many ways I learn through her,” King says of his daughter. Indeed, when Margot first came to him with the idea, he asked if she was doing it because she felt she should, or because she really wanted to. “She said, ‘I really want to do it.’ And I said, ‘Then you should do it, and I’ll be there to help’. And interestingly, she said, which was very sweet, ‘Is it all right if I come to you for advice and assistance?’”
King, however, said no. “I said, ‘But you and Emmet can come to me,’” he recalls. “I’ve stood back, and I feel in some ways like a restaurant therapist. The best therapists in the world are the ones who allow you to find the answers without telling the client what they should do.”
The idea for the pop-up came about late last year as the People’s team began considering how to celebrate their first anniversary. “I’ll put this very transparently: I felt like we had enough time under our belt to lean into that relationship without distracting from something that ultimately was ours,” Hauer-King said. “It felt like the right moment in the story to bring him in.”
A quick scan of People’s on the weeknight I visit reveals little to anchor it to King’s world of London restaurants. There are no posters or overt signage about the pop-up. Instead, when you enter the third room, with its vast wooden and glass bar and dramatic floral arrangements, you’ll spot the menus and a varied mix of diners—women in their 30s meeting after work, an older couple, what appears to be a few first dates—all discussing their day over bang bang chicken. As midnight approaches, its chrome mirrors and velvet booths are draped with leopard and leather coats as the DJ comes on to play for a cross-generational crowd.
“The problem with a lot of restaurants nowadays, particularly in Great Britain, is that they are run by corporations,” King tells me. “I’ve often said there is a big difference between a restaurateur and a restaurant owner.” It goes without saying that King is very much the former—and following the roaring successes of his two comeback London restaurants, Arlington and The Park, he’s now set to revamp one of the city’s oldest restaurants, Simpson’s in the Strand.
“I’m in the middle of what s been effectively a 25-year journey,” King says of his latest endeavour. “We’re within about six weeks or so of opening Simpson’s, which is probably the last iconic grande dame restaurant that exists in London. People like the old restaurants—the rules and so on. I think when Simpson’s opens, people will be somewhat amazed to find that was the way people lived 100 years ago.” For now, you can enjoy a taste of that spirit on West 13th Street.